Home on this, the noisiest of holidays, I sit with my book
and my husband, both quiet things that my hands cherish.
We hear the neighbors laugh and yell in Polish,
comprehend by tone as we read on the deck.
I consider the dog’s panting summer tongue, the hair
escaping his sleek body in dandelion clumps,
and a great love swells in my body like
a successful ad campaign.
I do not deserve this.
I know I have done wrong.
As a child, I confessed every little sin, rosary
in hand, felt a column of smoke escape my body.
These prayers are silent now, but sometimes whisper
their way into my pen. The day is languorous, filled
with unspoken truths, bare skin, sun. Fireworks explode
on cue. Far from any sea, a tide in me crashes then recedes.
Donna Vorreyer is the author of Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (Sundress Publications, 2016) and A House of Many Windows (Sundress, 2013) as well as eight chapbooks, most recently The Girl (Porkbelly Press).